In a future where a special police unit is able to arrest murderers before they commit their crimes, an officer from that unit is himself accused of a future murder. In the year 2054 A.D. crime is virtually eliminated from Washington D.C. thanks to an elite
law enforcing squad "Precrime". They use three gifted humans (called "Pre-Cogs") with special powers to see into the future and predict crimes beforehand. John Anderton heads Precrime and believes the system's flawlessness steadfastly. However one day the
Pre-Cogs predict that Anderton will commit a murder himself in the next 36 hours. Worse, Anderton doesn't even know the victim. He decides to get to the mystery's core by finding out the 'minority report' which means the prediction of the female Pre-Cog Agatha
that "might" tell a different story and prove Anderton innocent. I wasn't much impressed by "Minority Report." There really wasn't a lot that was new or all that complex. Or perhaps there had been at one time before the script was "Spielberged." Seemed soft
to me. The technological advances envisioned didn't seem much more impressive than those in "Back to the Future 3." BUT what bugged me most were the many glaring lapses of logic, and one in particular that will necessitate a SPOILER to explain (below).

OK, Cruise is on the run--formerly a government cop, now a wanted man, considered a top criminal by the all powerful government. The most common means of identification in the future (apparantly)is the retinal scan. Everything requires a retinal scan. They
always know what you're doing and where you are via the retinal scans of your eyes. SO, Cruise has his eyes removed and replaced in order to make it harder for the government to ID and find him by a retinal scan. Got that? OK. Now, after his eye transplant,
Cruise wants to sneak back into his old super-secret, high security government controlled lab. So, what does he do? He brings his original eyes with him in a jar and uses them in the retinal scanner in order to get entry.

DID YOU GET THAT?

Do you get how stupid that is? HE HAD HIS EYES REMOVED FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF NOT ALERTING THE GOVERNMENT TO HIS WHEREABOUTS WHEN HE HAS TO USE A RETINAL SCANNING DEVICE!!! I MEAN, HAVING DIFFERENT EYES WAS THE WHOLE POINT--WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE
IF HE'S CARRYING THEM IN A JAR OR THEY'RE STILL IN HIS SKULL? IT'S THE STUPIDEST THING EVER!

DON'T YA THINK THE POWERS THAT BE WOULD HAVE REVOKED HIS SECURITY PRIVALIGES ONCE HE BECAME A TOP CRIMINAL? Or, at the very least don't ya think that once the retinal pattern of the most wanted man in the country showed up on the grid that the omnipotent government
would then rush to the scene?

It's this kind of complete disregard for even the simplest logic that convinced me that Spielberg needs to just stay away from Science Fiction all together.

All in all--very slick, but also very sloppy. Closer to Jurrasic Park 2 than Close Encounters. Minority Report has some of the best special and visual effects I've seen in any movie. It's refreshing to see Max Von Sydow on the big screen again. (What was the
last movie he did?) With all the murders going on in the world today, it would be nice if we had the kind of technology they did in the movie and could catch the murderer before he/she struck. It's too bad that in the movie the whole program turns out to be
a big joke.

Artificial Intelligence and Minority Report, I believe, were originally supposed to be directed by the late Stanley Kubrick. Steven Spielberg has directed both these movies very well, but if Kubrick had taken a pass on that bomb Eyes Wide Shut and did those
two instead, it would have been a great way to finish his short but great career. Cruise will never be a master thespian, but there's no one better at putting across the charisma of control, and the opening sequence of ''Report'' is an astonishingly fluid
demonstration of his gifts. Philharmoniker (as Wiener Philharmoniker) Courtesy of Deutsche